New project to assess impact of green transition

The European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ESS ERIC) is a partner in a new project that began on 1 January 2025 to explore the social impact of the green transition.

Social Aspects of the Green Transition (SoGreen) brings together four leading social science infrastructures: the ESS ERIC, Generations and Gender Programme (GGP), Growing Up In Digital Europe (GUIDE) and, project coordinator, Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE-ERIC).

The four social science projects will facilitate the use of existing data to explore how the green transition impacts different generations and socioeconomic groups across Europe.

Funded by the European Commission, the €5m project will collect new data to offer valuable insights into how elements of the European Commission’s European Green Deal affect the general population.

By combining survey datasets with geospatial data using innovative visualization tools, the project promises to deliver new insights into the green transition at both national and regional levels.

SoGreen web panel

Specifically, the ESS will lead on work package 4 and 6 of the project by planning and operating a series of mixed-mode panel surveys that will field questions related to the green transition.

Questions will be fielded in 11 countries – Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, and the UK – via the CROss-National Online Survey (CRONOS) Panel and will include a paper questionnaire for respondents who are off-line or rarely use the internet.

SoGreen questions fielded in this new project will complement data currently being collected via CRONOS-3 through the Infra4NextGen project, which includes five waves of questions on the NextGenEU themes: digital, equal, green, healthy and strong.

The questions will be selected for inclusion on the SoGreen panel following a review of existing relevant items fielded in surveys operated by project partners and other cross-national surveys of note as well as consideration of new and emerging topics.

Once finalised, the questions will be fielded across three waves of SoGreen from late 2025 until late 2026, including one set of questions that will be asked in all waves to provide a longitudinal perspective.

The CRONOS panel will be led by ESS HQ based at City, St George’s University of London with support from Centerdata for the administration of surveys.

The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex will be responsible for drawing the sample of respondents in each country and weighting the data.

Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research will ensure that the CRONOS data is processed and easily accessible by the research community.

Data collection via the CRONOS 3 panel will be conducted by beneficiaries in 11 countries: Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna, IHS, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, ICS-UL, Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, KU Leuven, National Centre for Social Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Sciences Po, Social Science Research Center, HUN-REN TK, University of Ljubljana, University of Iceland, and University of Turku.

A selection of questions fielded via CRONOS will be included as a special module in the SHARE self-completion questionnaire for respondents aged over 50.

This will enable the project to collect evidence on various aspects of the green transition from respondents who represent the older population in Europe.

Questions on the green transition will also be fielded in a GGP In-between Waves Survey (IBWS) and the Children Innovation Panel Survey (CIPS), administered by GUIDE.

The collection of data via CIPS will allow for the opinions of children aged 8-18 years old and their parents to be considered in the future.

Existing and new survey data on the green transition will be harmonised and presented as part of a new dissemination platform to make the data as accessible as possible.

The Knowledge Mobilisation Lab is a new platform designed to connect policymakers, researchers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and private sector stakeholders.

The Lab will present data to help shape the discourse on the green transition and deliver insights to influence policy and societal developments.

ESS Director, Professor Rory Fitzgerald, said:

"We are incredibly excited to begin work on this Horizon Europe project that promises to shape policy on an increasingly important policy area.

"By bringing together some of the key social science infrastructures in Europe – and pooling resources to deliver an academically rigorous and policy relevant dataset – the outcomes of this project will help shape policy on the green transition in Europe.

"We are very proud to be part of the SoGreen project and look forward to helping produce valuable insights into public opinion that will help shape how the green transition is managed for the benefit of everyone."

SHARE ERIC Managing Director, Prof. Dr. David Richter, added:

"At the heart of SoGreen lies innovation and collaboration.

"The consortium will create harmonized datasets and launch a joint dissemination platform, making the data more accessible and fostering consistency in analysis across studies.

"By cultivating this dynamic network, SoGreen aims to shape the discourse on the green transition and deliver actionable insights that influence policy and societal developments.

"SoGreen is not just a research project. It is a bold step toward understanding and navigating Europe’s green future."

Social Aspects of the Green Transition (SoGreen)